Bioethics in Gerontology: Developing a Typology of Ethical Issues in Assisted Living.

Assisted living (AL) simultaneously is home to older adults who cannot live independently and a place where people work and visit and, therefore, where value conflicts are apt to arise. In this report we present the "Typology of Ethical Issues in Assisted Living" with emphasis on its development. The typology derives from a synthesis of frameworks used in acute care spaces adapted and applied to data collected as part of an ethnographic study involving AL residents with dementia. Our work advances knowledge and has implications for future research and practice.

Parent-Child Grief Interactions: A Qualitative Analysis and Conceptual Framework of the Lived Experiences of Young Widowed Parents.

A young parent's death is an unexpected event that incurs family stress and grief for the surviving parent and young children. However, few studies have examined widowed parents' grief experiences and parent-child interactions following a co-parent's death. Guided by phenomenology, this qualitative study examined the lived experiences of (N = 12) surviving parents grieving the loss of their co-parent. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using an inductive analytic procedure. Findings included themes of (1) not showing grief with child; (2) talking through grief/emotions with child; (3) maintaining connection between deceased parent and child; (4) timing of sharing things with children; and (5) utilizing bereavement and group support. These findings suggest that support services for surviving parents include providing information to them about the timing of when to share mementos with children and psychoeducation on emotion sharing and masking as part of the grief process with young children.

Recurring Parent-Child Conflict: A Mediator between Parental Anger Management and Adolescent Behavior.

Guided by social learning theory, this longitudinal study examined whether parent-child recurring conflict mediated the association between parental anger management, an understudied antecedent to parent-child recurring conflict, and adolescent deviant and problem-solving behaviors in 415 rural families. Parental use of anger management in 6th grade was associated with less parent-child recurring conflict in 9th grade, which was associated with more adolescent problem-solving behavior in 11th grade. Family practitioners seeking to promote adolescent problem-solving behaviors may consider teaching families strategies for reducing parent-child recurring conflict and fostering parental anger management.

Caregivers' Self-Compassion and Bereaved Children's Adjustment: Testing Caregivers' Mental Health and Parenting as Mediators.

Objectives: Self-compassion, which involves mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity, has been found to be related to individuals' mental health. Few studies have examined caregivers' self-compassion in relation to parenting behaviors and child adjustment in addition to its relation to their own mental health. In the current study we examined caregivers' self-compassion as a protective factor related to parentally bereaved children's internalizing and externalizing problems and further tested whether these relations were mediated by caregivers' mental health (complicated grief and psychological distress) and parenting. Methods: The sample consisted of 74 caregivers (female = 78.4%) who participated in a larger study designed for bereaved families. At T1 (baseline) and T2 (20 weeks later), caregivers completed measures on demographic information, self-compassion, complicated grief, parental warmth, and consistent discipline, as well as child internalizing and externalizing problems. Results: Findings supported that caregivers' self-compassion was prospectively related to decreased internalizing and externalizing problems in bereaved children. Mediation analyses showed that the effect of self-compassion on externalizing problems was mediated by parental warmth and by consistent discipline. In addition, caregivers' self-compassion was prospectively associated with decreased complicated grief and psychological distress of the caregiver. Conclusions: These findings add to the knowledge on the benefits of self-compassion for bereaved families and suggest that caregivers' self-compassion intervention may be a leveraging point to protect both bereaved caregivers from complicated grief and distress but also to strengthen parenting which leads to bereaved children's adjustment.